MAN-MADE: Today, I’m Getting Top Surgery

“This is one of the happiest days of my life.”

Today is the day I get top surgery.The lumps of fat on my chest will be removed after years of disconnected reflections.

I distinctly remember hating even the idea of them growing as my mother explained the process of puberty to me at seven-years-old. She explained how they would grow, along with the curves in my hips.

She smiled.I frowned.

After the conversation, I retreated to my bedroom to examine my fleeting, flat chest in the mirror.

I knew I would miss it.Puberty would change my body into something unrecognizable to my mind.

I can clearly remember facing my reflection, pressing down on my chest with my hands.Hoping, unsuccessfully, that perhaps this small pressure would alert my body to stop the process of puberty.

A few weeks later, I bounced down my elementary school stairs towards the doors of recess.This was the first time I felt it.That bounce.
My chest was bouncing along with my body, and I knew in that moment it was over.My hoping hadn’t stopped my chest from growing.Time continued, and my chest grew.

Throughout all of this, the idea of being transgender was so deeply suppressed, I did not even allow myself to consider it.

The last time I considered it, I was nine-years-old. Clearly presenting masculine or how adults seem to translate this: “Tom-Boy.”

My mother realized; perhaps I was not just performing masculine characteristics as a phase, but maybe it is who I wanted to be permanently. So, she told me:

“There are these surgeries you can get when you’re older if you still feel this way. They will make you be a boy.”

Be a boy.Be a boy…what does that even mean?

I felt inherently feminine and masculine inside, but simply preferred to present masculine.Would I lose my femininity by getting these surgeries?This is what ran through my head.However, I only had the language at nine-years-old to say:

“No thank you, because I don’t want to be a boy.”

I turned the thought of this down because I believed it would cost me my femininity.
The knowledge that gender is a spectrum and infinite is what both my mother and I lacked in this moment.

Today, I am 19-years-old and lucky enough to have been educated on the gender identity spectrum, the information and language I lacked the years ago. I discovered that the way you present yourself — your appearance — can be different than how you identify mentally! Inherently, I have characteristics of both masculinity and femininity. However, I prefer to present mainly masculine.

This is what it means to identify as genderqueer mentally, while presenting masculine.

So now, maybe you can understand why I am quite possibly unconscious at this very moment.I am in surgery to allow myself a more masculine-presenting future.One where I can pass my reflection and connect with the body I see in the mirror.

This is one of the happiest days of my life.

Chella Man is a 19-year-old, deaf, genderqueer, queer artist currently transitioning on testosterone. He is studying virtual reality programming at The New School in New York City, while creating art on the side. His main focus is to educate others on issues regarding being queer and disabled within a safe space.